Albert Fein - February 19, 2005

The Kolomyia Ghetto II

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So there was a Judenrat.

Yeah.

And what were they like?

They give me some, some type, you know, I was like a scheigetzer. I was running around to, to the fences, you know, bringing in food. Uh, in the--where we moved in a place, there was upstairs--this was empty place. Downstairs was a barber shop. And he, he was--we met him first and he says, "Upstairs you can live there. There is some furnitures, some beds, and you can stay there. There's nobody there," and this was in the corner on a park. There was a park--a very nice park in the city. And we--on the side, there was in the fence was invisible door, so we can walk there in it and nobody will notice we are there. So we lived there for a while and this was where we came, and, and we was living there for, oh, over a year I guess or less than a year--ten months, something like this. The ghetto was already organized, and this was across the street from the ghetto. From Umschlagstelle, this was a place where they was going in and out form the ghetto. It was certain areas where--from there Jewish people was taking to work, some was working on the railroad, some was working in other places, so they was coming in and out. We was on the, on the first floor, so we saw everything what was going on there.

Did you, did you witness any Aktionen?

What?

Any Aktionen? Shooting?

Shooting, not. Selektions, yes. This was the street and beside of the street was a big place. There was fire wood collected there for the city. And, and this was surrounded with a fence--wooden fence, very high, about five feet or so. From, from the upstairs we saw everything. People was even knowing, you know, when it will be a selection. And they was bringing out from the ghetto and straight there. They was counting the people. You could see there Germans, you know, with dogs, Germans with sticks. They make an upper line and count each count and this meeting and at the end of the day they was taking them out to the railroad station and....

...and deporting them.

We, we--they says that they are going to the war. I mean, what was happen to those people, we don't know. We know that they was killed.